Woe to the brazen meddler

Something odd happened to me this week. After sending in an ad for the souvenir dinner journal of a national association, the production department for this cheap little journal sent me a scanned copy of my ad. Marked up. With their suggested edits.

I'm sorry, come again?

One of the recommended edits included changing "paves a way" to "paves the way." No. Semantics are important. We do not want to be so bold as to suggest that our firm is providing the only way. There is a reason for the language chosen and it is not their place to judge that.

How excessively unprofessional. The only thing worse would be opening the ad in Illustrator, fixing it and printing it without permission. If it had been a blatant misspelling or other error, I would have been grateful that they brought it to my attention. But it's not their job to do so. Nor is it their job to take ads under a magnifying glass and critique them.

Stick to your job, I'll stick to mine, and maybe we can avoid these silly battles.